One and Two
by Elyan White
Summary: In which Yuri Plisetsky attempts to deal with the shenanigans inherent in knowing Victor Nikiforov by being an adult among children, but Otabek keeps bringing him right back around to horny teenager.
1. Chapter 1

One and Two

Scene 1: Can't Catch Me, Gay Thoughts!  
(YES WE CAN.)

* * *

There was something about Victor and Yuri.

Something about Victor, tall, willow-slender, and pale as a good Moscow snow, and something about Yuri, with his shorter, more compacted, could-be-baby-fat-could-be-curves look. (Giacometti's repeated failure to put his hand anywhere north of his waist indicated the latter).

Something about the way their personalities could do complete 180s around each other-Victor's instant transition from serene, blue-eyed dignity to flirty, giggling, _is he drunk, or…?_ , and how Yuri was one second all big brown eyes and blushing, the next _hauling Victor over the side of the rink by his tie_ and did you _see_ him in that Eros suit?!

It was something that…kind of bothered Yuri (no, not that Yuri, the other one).

Yuri Plisetsky (AKA the other one) was not the type to be _bothered_. His emotions ranged anywhere from _annoyed_ to _exasperated_ to _outraged_ , and generally involved much growling and yelling. In this regard, he was much like a tiger cub, or so Mila liked to tease him, and she got away with it because if she could pick him up over her head she could also throw him through a wall. And also because Yuri _liked_ tigers, okay.

Yet here he was, feeling, specifically, _bothered_ by seeing Katsuki go tripping happily by with his humming Russian lumberjack waif, decidedly pleased with having lost to him by a matter of decimals and decidedly being married in the summer. And, on a similar note, here Otabek was, solemnly watching him watch Yuri and Victor-seriously, was this the only coffee shop at the rink?-from over the top of his Styrofoam cup.

One would think it was black coffee, like Yuri had-intense and no-nonsense, like Otabek. But no, Otabek had explained to him with great seriousness, it was actually a _skinny latte,_ with soy, because he was allergic to milk and liked to cut calories. He was learning a lot about Otabek, now that the rush of the Grand Prix Finals had ended. Yuri had initially thought he'd already started home after the final scores panned out, but when Yuri had emerged from his performance, hair still up-done and braided in the skull-clinging ballerina style Lilia had wrangled it into and his face still flushed from the emotion of it all- _I won, I broke the record, Yuri is staying, Grandpa, did you see me?_ -there was Otabek, who congratulated him whole-heartedly on his victory and then promptly asked him to coffee.

"Is something bothering you?" Otabek asked him from the other side of the table, in the same tone that most people would use to ask which family member the funeral was for.

Well, yes, it was, but Yuri didn't know what "it" was, and as far as he was concerned, if he didn't know than it didn't exist.

Sometimes he wondered why his grandpa said he worried about him.

"Nothing," Yuri huffed into the last remaining quarter cup of his drink. "Just wondering what Victor and Yuri think they're gonna do when they've got to compete against each other."

Otabek glanced over to where the pair of interest were tucking themselves into their own table for two, talking animatedly about something.

"I'm not sure they're going to."

Yuri frowned. "What do you mean? They both said they were coming back."

Otabek shrugged and gave an almost-smile. "There are other kinds of skating. And things change." A stray chunk of his charcoal hair fell into his charcoal eyes as he gestured with his chin, and they both looked over at the rings flashing on their fingers.

Things _had_ changed. Things had started changing ever since he and Victor had a dance-off with a drunk Japanese kid (never mind that Katsuki was actually older than him), and then Victor went haring off to coach a sober one. He still responded to the name Yurio, sometimes. _Still_. And then there was all of that naked ankle-touching that happened-clearly, the Japanese were a twisted people, putting all their men in baths together, it wasn't like Victor and Yuri needed any _more_ reason to get handsy-

He realized he was thinking about Yuri and Victor having sex, and tried frantically to stop. It didn't work. But Yuri wasn't one to back down from a fight, even with himself, so he instead thought furiously about Mila and Grandpa having sex, and that seemed to kill all the images of pretty young ice-skating men cavorting about with each other.

He tossed back the last of his coffee like he was knocking back a shot, and prayed the caffeine jolt could knock his brain back onto the tracks of sanity. Otabek watched in vague discomfort, obviously not sure if this behavior was normal. Yuri stared mournfully at the empty bottom of his cup.

"You can try some of mine," Otabek offered with deep chivalry, holding out his cup towards Yuri. Yuri's eyes traveled slowly from the traces of froth at the rim up to the traces of froth on Otabek's lips, and stayed there for a very long time.

"That's okay," he said in an only slightly strangled voice. Lactose intolerance should _not_ be this appealing.

…Shoot, now he was thinking about sex again.

* * *

 **For a friend. I did it for a friend.**

 **It's just that I enjoyed myself way too much doing it. Have my monster. (Fair warning: I know nothing about skating. Or coffee.)**


	2. Chapter 2

One and Two

Scene Two: Teenage Wasteland

* * *

In the end, Otabek insisted on giving him a ride back to his hotel. Well, actually, Otabek looked down (way, way down) at him as the glass café door swung shut, thankfully blocking out Katsuki's uncomfortable giggling at _wherever_ Victor's hand was, and told him, "I will drive you back." It was a statement, not an offer, and Yuri was hard-pressed to disagree. Besides, Yuri secretly thought that Otabek's bike was totally cool, and he hoped the biting wind might chill whatever flash-fire delirium was raging around in his head today.

He had Otabek's extra helmet jammed on his head and his face pressed into Otabek's back, which it didn't really need to be, but it filled his nose with strong leather and the inexplicable, comforting smell of what Yuri could only call _ice_. The sky was darkening, and there were nightlights blinking into life all around and above, and Yuri could hardly stop staring. He was dangerously close to contentment.

And that was when he saw it.

"Otabek," he said emphatically, practically shouting to be heard over the general cacophony that came with motorcycling, " _pull over_."

Otabek did pull over, _hard_ , responding with the same blind discipline of an infantryman responding to his commander. His tires screeched up next to the sidewalk and he leaned fluidly onto one leg, craning back towards Yuri with mild but serious concern.

"What? Are you all right?"

But Yuri had already whipped out his phone and leaned precariously off the bike to start aggressively Instagramming the kittens playing in the lighted shop windows. "Omigodlookit," he said, with feeling. They had ribbons around their necks. Yuri was a dead man.

Of course, what he _wanted_ to do was barge in and buy twenty. But the kittens for which Yuri had broken the "look, don't touch" rule had ways of ending up in his grandfather's house for life. And while his grandfather was tolerantly willing to maintain the mystery of these "ways", he had mentioned emphatically that he wished they would take a break. Yuri was also far away from home, after all, and he was (reluctantly) morally opposed to involving Otabek in an international kitten heist.

He wondered off-handedly if Chris had ever learned the "look, don't touch" rule, while Otabek blinked the rapid blink of the bemused but quietly resigned. "Oh. Is that all?" he said.

Yuri suddenly snapped himself forward-facing again, sitting as high and indignant as could be managed on his motorcycle perch. "What do you mean ' _is that all_.'"

He angled one of his elbows over Otabek's shoulder-damn, that broadly muscled back made his arms look _short_ -to proudly show the impassive Otabek his new pictures. " _Is that all_. Do you have any idea what you're say-"

Yuri dropped his phone.

" _Agh_ -"

He lunged for it in a desperate save, and Otabek responded automatically by curling himself back into Yuri in a sort of cradling motion, trying to stop it from falling into the street. They both caught it, luckily, Otabek right against his leg and Yuri with his hand, uh, _also_ right on Otabek's leg-on his thigh, really.

In his lap. And it was a very firm catch.

The natural reaction would have been to get extremely flustered and possibly temperamental, in true Yuri fashion, but there was some unidentified urge which, while it couldn't override Yuri's teenage instinct to hold onto his phone like his life depended on it, encouraged Yuri to take a moment to a moment to really get a _feel_ for Otabek's thighs, full of sinew, dedication, _passion_ -

That unidentified urge made his throat very dry, and then twitched his hand towards where the zipper of Otabek's pants was. That same unidentified urge in turn awakened the start of a possible issue in his own tailored, tight pants.

It was at this perilous moment, on the verge of completely uncharted territory, that Yuri happened to glance dazedly to his left. And, right there in the window, staring straight at him, was a tiny gray kitten with wide, wondering blue eyes-innocent. Curious. _Judgmental_.

That single instant reminded him very horribly of all the other eyes that might be trained on them, and Yuri came crashing back to rushing, chattering, night-life reality, blushing with such force that he wobbled a bit on Otabek's bike from momentary dizziness.

"Uh," he said, not quite sure how to extricate himself from Otabek-at this point, he'd already stayed in place for much too long to play it off as a momentary accident. Even Yuri, never exactly a paragon of social nuances, knew this much.

Yuri quickly began to cast around in his mind for something suave and Victorish he could say that would explain this whole situation away as happenstance, even whilst straddling another man from behind as he tickled Yuri's nose unfairly with the aromatic, sexy-sweet tinge of coffee on his breath.

"You have very nice thighs," Yuri said angrily, because he said everything angrily. Then he listened to himself.

Oh. Oh, bloody hell. Yuri mentally punched Victor in the dick for being a bad role-model with boundary issues.

And Otabek? Otabek didn't say a word, just watched him intently-probably making sure that Yuri wasn't going to lose his balance again and swan-dive into the street. When Yuri stayed perfectly frozen in place, Otabek gently and gentlemanly retrieved both Yuri's phone and his hand and then conjoined the two, waiting patiently for Yuri to regain his faculties enough to keep his own grip. Yuri eventually did, numbly-the exchange had lasted so awkwardly long that the phone screen had gone black.

He stared at in in incomprehension, unable to fathom looking at anything else-especially Otabek. But something strange prompted him to do it anyway, like he could somehow telepathically interpret that that was what Otabek wanted him to do.

"I think you have nice thighs, too," Otabek said with the utmost sincere dignity, and just the slightest caramelly _hint_ of laughter.

And then Otabek revved up the engine and pulled back into the lulled street, Yuri clinging instinctively on to him from behind him-or at least, that was how Yuri assumed he got back to his room that night. It was all mostly post-panic static in his brain.

It was time, Yuri acknowledged later, laying wide awake and still shell-shocked in his bed, to call in the big guns. He would have to ask Victor for advice.

* * *

 **I can't believe I wrote this many words about kittens and touching thighs. Also, another fair warning: I know nothing about Instagram or social media.**


	3. Chapter 3

One and Two

Scene Three: The Best Part About This Is That No One's Stopping Me

* * *

Actually, that was a lie. Who in their right mind would ever do such a thing? Victor was a crazy man with a talent for making split-second decisions that would affect the rest of his life. But that was what happened anyway, in the least helpful way possible.

Yuri was walking skittishly along the moderately busy street outside the hotel, keeping an eye out for any possible threats to his sanity (so really any of his ice-skating acquaintances) when, from _right_ behind him, Victor's long-fingered hands descended onto his shoulders like spiders pouncing elegantly onto their prey.

"Come, let's have lunch together," Victor urged as Yuri waited for his spirit to come back into his body. Apparently Victor was used to people gasping like they were having heart attacks when he started talking to them. Yuri glared at him suspiciously-Victor was smiling with the down-played exuberance of a man running across a former student in a genuine accident, rather than the intensive rooftop stalking Yuri was convinced he'd been doing instead.

Yuri managed to get enough breath back to respond. " _No_ ," he said.

Except "no" did not work on Victor Nikiforov.

Yuri found himself being ushered enthusiastically (read: coerced) into a little deli just across the street from where they were, which Yuri hadn't noticed before. It was packed squarishly between two shops and had a vacant second floor crouching morosely over it, but the inside was clean, rustic, and homey, and had one of those tinkling door-bells that amused Victor so.

Remembering his time at the coffee shop with Otabek, Yuri got himself a glass of water, with ice. No worries about being drained to the dregs there-if he found himself needing to do something to deflect the awkward, even if the water ran out, the ice would melt into _more_ water. Genius. There was no possible way that Victor could make him think about sex, or other men having sex, or him having sex. Sex with Otabek. Wait, what?

Curses. That was half of his water gone _already_.

"So, how are things going?" Victor pried coyly-or at least, that was probably what he meant to do, but as far as Yuri was concerned after the previous day's "nice thighs" incident, every time Victor opened his mouth he committed a war crime.

"Things," Yuri growled back. "What things?"

Victor chuckled, like a young, fit, metrosexual Santa Claus. "Oh, _things_ ," he repeated, like he found Yuri's mistrust adorable and misplaced. And then he added, in the same breath, "Things with _Otabek_."

"There were no things," Yuri blurted out in immediate defense. "And it was an _accident_."

Victor's eyebrows went up and Yuri knew instantly he'd said too much.

"Ah, but Yurio, there _are_ no accidents in love," Victor declared, so heartfeltly that the people from the next table over started looking their way. "There are only the natural and fortuitous responses of your body to the subconscious."

The second Victor stopped talking about skating, Yuri usually stopped understanding what he was saying. Now, for instance-Victor was still talking animatedly, but Yuri had no idea about what. He almost knocked his own sandwich off the table with his sweeping hand gestures.

"Wait," Yuri's mouth said for him, making him suddenly blanch. "What do you mean 'in _love_ '?"

But like many of the people who for some inexplicable reason had stopped being afraid of Yuri, Victor completely ignored him and carried on like Yuri had agreed with him.

"And _you_ ," he said, still too loudly, "well, your body can respond in many ways-you're trained in classical ballet, so you ought to be _very_ flexible. You know, my Yuri-"

 _The one you sleep with_ , Yuri supplied in his mind.

"-is much more…malleable. Shapely, even. But you aren't like that-you're much more…whippy." Victor snapped his fingers when he found the word, obviously pleased with himself. Yuri was less than.

" _What do you mean_ -"

"Ha, ha, see? Look at you snap." Victor snapped his fingers a few more times and laughed at himself for longer than was warranted.

"Now Otabek, on the other hand," he said after he recovered, and Yuri hated that his interest piqued at that, "is quite different. He has some more bulk on him. Very solid legs-very nice."

Victor gave him that slit-eyed birds-singing-in-the-trees smile and flapped the tail of his scarf at him like a lady's fan. "Many skaters have nice legs. Wouldn't you agree?"

Oh, dear God.

Yuri wanted Victor to stop looking at him like that. He wanted Victor to stop looking at _anything_ like that.

Just as he was debating whether it would be better to try and drown himself with his water or hurl it at Victor and leg it out (oh, God, _legs_ ), a miracle happened. Or more accurately, a miracle came jogging over like a bouncing puppy, calling and waving for Victor.

The sexual tension immediately ratcheted up by ten degrees as all of Victor's attention diverted instantaneously to the other Yuri ( _the one he sleeps with_ , he thought again) and he stood from the table to affectionately greet him, but Yuri didn't care because it gave him an effective way out of this situation. He made use of that flexibility Victor had so discomfitingly described to crab his way out from between his chair and the table, while his two very questionable idols did that weird standing-too-close-to-each-other thing that couples did.

But he didn't get far.

"You know," Victor called after him with mischief in his eyes, "like teacher, like student!"

While Yuri sputtered, Victor winked at him, several times in succession-wasn't the once enough?-and then leaned into the arm that slithered seductively around his waist. Yuri added that to the list of things that needed to stop happening: Katsuki taking advice from Giacometti. Someone had got to be in charge of Katsuki, and clearly it should not be Victor.

Yuri spun on his heel and stomped out, not able to stop himself from feeling bitter about how Victor and Katsuki could make everyone around them feel awkward while being completely comfortable with themselves and each other. That was a state of being that had become very, very foreign to Yuri over the past few days, and he sulked about it the whole way back to the hotel while he wondered why.

Nearly half an hour later in the hotel garden, he still could not find an answer. That was where Otabek found him, glaring at the topiaries and frightening the other guests into avoiding him.

"I was looking for you," he said, slightly breathless, and even though Yuri had been keeping his hood up and his head down he could see a flush on Otabek's cheeks that was just obvious enough for him to imagine that maybe Otabek literally had been _looking_ for him, searching through the streets and shops, and he hadn't stopped until he'd found him just now.

He paused like he was about to continue, but the pause just kept lasting, and it struck Yuri for the first time that maybe Otabek didn't really have any idea what was going on with them, either. Otabek, after all, had spent years of his life worrying about what Yuri thought of him and probably wouldn't have had any idea to approach him about it if Yuri hadn't happened to need to escape from a pack of rabid she-wolves. And anyway, Otabek was very straightforward-but that was because Yuri would never know what he was thinking if he wasn't.

Shrugging his hood back, Yuri cocked his head slowly and cattishly to one side to scrutinize Otabek through narrowed eyes, the very first inklings of something beginning to dawn on him-something about how Katsuki and Victor looked when they stood beside each other and something about that word Victor had said that Yuri hadn't liked.

After Otabek had stopped talking, he had stumped up to Yuri's shoulder, and now he was standing stolidly with his hands in his jacket pockets, breathing so close to him that he was disturbing a few of the flyaways Yuri had created when he took off his hood. He still smelled faintly of sweet coffee and misconceptions.

"Hey, Otabek," Yuri started to say, not sure where he was going but becoming more and more convinced that Otabek wasn't sure either.

But out of nowhere, Otabek interrupted him.

"Would it be all right if I kissed you?" he asked, and then seemed very surprised that he had-"very" for Otabek meaning "barely discernably".

"I would still like to be friends," he added in a stilted non-sequitur, and if Yuri tried hard he thought he could read a stoic but somewhat vulnerable discomfort off his blank features.

"Okay," Yuri said after a short but weighted silence, because he understood what Otabek meant this time and what else was there to say? But Otabek started in place like maybe he thought differently.

"What?" he said, with a voice crack that made Yuri flash back to younger, less fortunate days.

"I said okay," Yuri clarified angrily, because he still said everything angrily. "To both of those things."

Otabek still seemed like he didn't understand what was going on, but Yuri was done with that. And since he'd been meaning to bring it up anyway, just before Otabek did, Yuri half-turned right into Otabek's personal space and kissed him.

It was not a good kiss. Yuri had never done it before, and it was impractically executed because Otabek didn't accommodate him _at all_ and he was quite tall compared to Yuri (everyone was quite tall compared to Yuri). It was also a tad bit forceful. But it tasted the way coffee smelled and left his senses blending into each other in a way that made Yuri certain he would have fallen off Otabek's bike if he was sitting on it right now.

"There," Yuri said, taking a pitbullish stance. "We're still friends."

Otabek, the dark horse of the Grand Prix, looked down at him with obsidian eyes. "Ow," he said.

Yuri raised an eyebrow that could very well have been Victor's. Otabek shuffled around slightly, visibly tried to come up with something to say, and then visibly stopped himself from saying it.

"I don't have to become your coach, do I?" he said finally. "Because I doubt I could instruct you in skating."

"It's fine, whatever," Yuri huffed, unhappily accepting that Victor Nikiforov was going to be a part of his love life forever. "I'll teach _you_."

For some reason, this made Otabek get a kind of silly look on his rugged face-a subtle version of the of dazed grin that Yuri sometimes unwittingly inspired in various overenthusiastic female fans. Somehow, Yuri didn't mind it so much on Otabek, and in fact, would not have minded seeing it again soon.

"Okay," said Otabek, because that was something they both understood.

And just like that they were back to standing in the hotel garden with ugly topiaries, Otabek with his hands in his pockets and Yuri with his hood back up and no words left between them, but this was a very different beast. This was Victor and Katsuki's beast, except less irritating. This was the art of doing nothing yet dancing perfectly-like a free skate choreographed and practiced until it was flawless, but with no planning or point system. And that, Yuri realized, was just love.

"Hey," he said to Otabek. "Have you ever been to an onsen?"

* * *

 **Holy abrupt tone change, Batman!**

 **Well, now you all know what I've been doing with my spare time. This is the only non-D. Gray-Man piece I've ever posted on my account, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'd love to know how you feel, though.**

 **Cheers to the readers!**


End file.
